Sheep for the Slaughter
by Wynn
Summary: A short fic about the intertwined fates of Haymitch Abernathy, Johanna Mason, and Effie Trinket. Set pre-series


"Sheep for the Slaughter"

The con is on, Haymitch knows. He squints at the fuzzy picture of Johanna Mason, recently chosen tribute from District 07. From her head down to her toes, she screams scared, her head ducked, her eyes wide, the nails on her hands already bitten to the quick. Yet the sloshed gut of Haymitch's soul tells him that the fear is just a façade, one covering the strongest will to live that he has seen in a Hunger Games tribute since himself.

He swallows the rest of his wine and looks at the two tributes from 12: the boy barely 13, with the height of puberty but not yet the weight, the girl the vapid daughter of the town tailor, her pink velvet dress crushed between her shaking knees. He has already forgotten their names.

"Stay away from Johanna Mason," he says.

Their escort, an aging man named Bibelot, with magenta hair and too tight skin around his eyes, glances at Haymitch and grimaces. Haymitch sees two decades of disgust in the grimace as well as a shade of hate; as the years pass, Bibelot's hope that Haymitch will deliver him a victor and thus a promotion to a flashier district dwindles into oblivion.

"Why ever why?" Bibelot says. "The girl is a sheep. Even Meryl could best her in a fight."

The girl, Meryl, stops shaking and stares at Bibelot with hopeful eyes. The boy does as well.

Haymitch sighs. "She only looks like a sheep, Bib. And looks might mean something in the Capital, but they don't mean shit in the Arena. That girl will gut you if you get close to her."

Now Bibelot sighs. "All that girl will do if you get close to her is cry and drip snot on your shoulder. Perhaps if you refrained from the bottle for one brief moment, you would see this."

"Maybe I would. But I'd also have to look at your ugly face and that's something I just can't do."

Bibelot's nostrils flare. He narrows his eyes at Haymitch and then rises from the couch. The sway of the train threatens to cast him back down on the navy cushions. "I know we are supposed to be a team," he says, "banding together to bring one of these babes from the woods home at the end of the Games. But I cannot abide your slovenly ignorance any longer. Failing to help your tributes due to your debauchery is one thing. Deliberately leading them to their slaughter with your cruel canards is quite another."

Haymitch rolls his eyes and slouches down on his couch. "I might be drunk and dirty, Bib, but at least I'm not a pompous moron."

Bibelot's pale hands tighten into fists. He turns to Meryl and the boy and says, "This man is a drunkard and a layabout. He has no talent. He does not care about the Games. He has never cared about the Games, and he does not care about you. Believe him at your own risk."

With a final glare at Haymitch, Bibelot strides from the car, slamming the door behind him. Silence descends in his wake, split only by the clacking of the wheels on the tracks. Meryl and the boy look at each other, their eyes wide. The boy has bitten his bottom lip bloody. Haymitch closes his eyes.

They are the sheep, not Johanna. Johanna the wolf. They are the ones to be sacrificed for the slaughter. They are the ones that will die.

Haymitch opens his eyes and looks at them again: the boy is too thin, probably never had a full meal in his life; the girl is too soft, just waiting to be crushed like the fabric of her dress. They'll die; Haymitch knows they will die, just like all the others died. He also knows now that he can't watch. Not again.

He stands, grabs the nearest bottle of spirits, and lurches toward the exit. "Believe what you want," he says over his shoulder. "I hope to hell I'm wrong, but believe what you want."

He slams his hand against the wall to open the door and then escapes the soft sounds of crying behind him.

Sheep: sheep for the slaughter.

* * *

Haymitch watches the mutts kill Meryl. He watches the tribute from District 02 drown the boy in the lake.

He watches Johanna shake and shiver and then slaughter the rest, their blood dripping from the curve of her axe.

He turns away from the screens. Bibelot stands before him, ridiculous in his emerald tunic. His face is pale and his hands are shaking, and then he realizes Haymitch is glaring at him. He shrieks and tries to turn away, but Haymitch grabs him and shoves his face against the nearest screen.

"Is she fluffy enough for you?" he says through gritted teeth. Bibelot squirms, but Haymitch tightens his grip. "Is she? Is she, Bib?Is she fucking fluffy enough for you?"

Bibelot starts to cry. Snot drips onto the monitor. Two Peacekeepers seize Haymitch and drag him away.

From the screens, over all, stare the brown eyes of Johanna Mason, no longer wide.

* * *

The next year, Effie Trinket awaits Haymitch on the train, her smile and ambition as blinding as the pink of her dress.

Fin.


End file.
